Sure you’ll be tempted because of the trend on Instagram and other photography websites but not everybody needs a Leica and it’s too expensive anyway. If you’re filthy rich or your parents can’t seem to stop throwing money at you, sure why not 🙂 Continue reading →

When the weather is too bad to go out and take photos, like today is for me, it’s a great opportunity for taking some time to learn from other photographers and their experiences, their images and their tips.

In this 58 minute video photographer Steve Simon discusses the tools and thought processes needed to capture unique street imagery. What I enjoyed in this presentation is the fact that Steve not only talks about his pictures or portfolio but also shows quite of few other famous pictures of other famous street photographers.Continue reading →

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1) Follow your dreamsMake the courage to follow your greatest dreams, take some risks. Even if you fail the things you will learn along the way are invaluable.

2) Speak your mind but in a polite and respectful mannerIt’s important to let people know what you think but always do so in a polite and respectful manner. Hurting people’s feelings brigs no value to your argument.

3) Sometimes good looks aren’t enough.Good looks are a plus but don’t expect your good looks to save you every time.

4) Make up your own mindPeople will always try and tell you what to do but you need to make up your own mind for your life’s decisions.

5) Work hard but don’t forget to have funIt is important to do your best at everything you do but don’t forget to celebrate and have some fun afterwords.

6) Always have close friendsYou’ll meet a lot of people in your life but very few, most likely only a couple, will be your true friends. Life is always going to be easier when you have true friends around.

7) Sometimes you’ll have to do things you don’t likeWhether is your personal life or your job, you’ll most likely be asked to do some things you don’t enjoy or like. It pays to do things you don’t like, try it.

8) Say yes more oftenSay yes to new things even if they seem hard or even if you haven;t tried them before. Life’s short, you need all the experience you can get.

9) Show upWoody Allen said: Showing up is 80 percent of life. Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed. Dress up and show up anyway.

10) It’s all about willpowerYou will face problems, you will face difficulties, willpower and persistence have to be your closest friends and allies if you wish to succeed in life.What tips do you have to improve life? List your answers in the comment section below.

3) Buy for YOU, not someone else.If you look long and hard enough you will find someone in TZ, or somewhere else who will criticize your choice no matter what it is. Buy for you, not to impress someone else.

4) Consider the movement.Consider the movement in the watch. Shoot for in-house or fine base calibers like the Zenith El Primero, Piguet, Lemania, Venus…but don’t buy a style you don’t like simply because the movement is a great one. You can’t wear a watch inside-out.

5) Consider the manufacturer.There are great ones to choose from but never buy just because of the name! Patek is considered one of the finest, if not the best manufacturer out there. But if you don’t like the designs, don’t buy one!

6) You won’t become the watch.The watch won’t change you. It is a watch. Einstein had a Patek, Hemingway wore Rolex and Omega. If you buy a Patek it won’t make you a genius, and neither an Omega or Rolex will improve your writing.

7) Size matters.Large watches are a fad and a style. Some really look good. Consider your wrist size because a really oversized watch on a small wrist looks sloppy. If you do buy a large watch, make sure your shirt cuffs will fit over it. You don’t want to have to redo your wardrobe to fit your watch!

8.) Get Insurance.You will sleep better.

9) There is always going to be a better deal.Shortly after you make a purchase, you will spot that exact same model selling for less. It is one of life’s little jokes. Don’t let it bother you.

10) Keep in mind that salespeople are usually only objective about watches thatthey sell.

11) The journey can be more fun than the destination.Shortly after a purchase you may experience a let down. Let it pass, it’s normal.12) If it is broke, fix it.To err is human. It is better to fix a mistake than try to live with it. If you really aren’t happy with a purchase, get rid of it!

13) Consider color.All stainless steel, all white gold, all platinum with a bracelet goes with everything. With a black strap, almost everything. 18k&black strap is dressy. 18k&brown strap is elegant but more casual, and looks good with browns, tans, blues, yellow, green, and sometimes even gray. White dials are dressier and easier to read, black dials are more cool and sporty.14) Accuracy is relative.Your self-winding watch isn’t as accurate as your quartz. However it can be 99% accurate. Off by just a few seconds out of over 80,000 each day is pretty amazing.

15) Take care of your good watches.Get them serviced, keep them clean. They’ll last longer than you will.

16) This is want, not need.No one ever needs a luxury watch, this is about want. If you ask yourself, “do I need this?” the honest answer is always, “no.”

17) Never buy a watch as an investment.Some watches will retain value, most don’t. The watch that actually appreciates in value is unique and chances are it will be your grandchildren who benefit, not you.18.) No one watch will statisfy you completely. There is no single definitive model.19) The more you know, the less you need.A collection of 4 exceptional watches is better than a collection of 10 mediocre ones.

20) Only engrave if it is a special gift.21) Buy what you will wear, not for an occasion.Don’t run out and buy a dressy watch for just one special night. You probably have one you can wear that will be just fine, or don’t wear one at all.22) Wear it.If it has been two months since you wore it, you don’t really like it. Get something you want to wear.

23) Limited is usually a marketing term.Limited to 5,000 pieces is not limited. Limited to 2,000 isn’t either. Really limited is 30. Or 10. Or one.24) You don’t have to justify to anyone except yourself.Someone will someday say, “you paid that much for a watch!!!” You are not obligated to explain, and they won’t understand anyway.

25) Don’t look at the Patek on the other guy’s wrist and be envious. Look at the watch on your wrist and be happy. Don’t judge anyone by the watch they wear, including yourself.

Like this:

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

You may know Mark Twain for some of his very popular books like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He was a writer and also a humorist, satirist and lecturer.

Twain is known for his many – and often funny – quotes. Here are a few of my favourite tips from him.

1. Approve of yourself.

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”

If you don’t approve of yourself, of your behavior and actions then you’ll probably walk around most of the day with a sort of uncomfortable feeling. If you, on the other hand, approve of yourself then you tend to become relaxed and gain inner freedom to do more of what you really want.

This can, in a related way, be a big obstacle in personal growth. You may have all the right tools to grow in some way but you feel an inner resistance. You can’t get there.

What you may be bumping into there are success barriers. You are putting up barriers in your own mind of what you may or may not deserve. Or barriers that tell you what you are capable of. They might tell you that you aren’t really that kind of person that could this thing that you’re attempting.

Or if you make some headway in the direction you want to go you may start to sabotage for yourself. To keep yourself in a place that is familiar for you.

So you need give yourself approval and allow yourself to be who you want to be. Not look for the approval from others. But from yourself. To dissolve that inner barrier or let go of that self-sabotaging tendency. This is no easy task and it can take time.

2. Your limitations may just be in your mind.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

So many limitations are mostly in our minds. We may for instance think that people will disapprove because we are too tall, too old or balding. But these things mostly matter when you think they matter. Because you become self-conscious and worried about what people may think.

And people pick up on that and may react in negative ways. Or you may interpret anything they do as a negative reaction because you are so fearful of a bad reaction and so focused inward on yourself.

If you, on the other hand, don’t mind then people tend to not mind that much either. And if you don’t mind then you won’t let that part of yourself become a self-imposed roadblock in your life.

It is, for instance, seldom too late to do what you want to do.3. Lighten up and have some fun.

“Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.”

“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”

Humor and laughter are amazing tools. They can turn any serious situation into something to laugh about. They can lighten the mood just about anywhere.

And a lighter mood is often a better space to work in because now your body and mind isn’t filled to the brim with negative emotions. When you are more light-hearted and relaxed then the solution to a situation is often easier to both come up with and implement. Have a look at Lighten Up! for more on this topic.

4. Let go of anger.

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

Anger is most of the time pretty pointless. It can cause situations to get out of hand. And from a selfish perspective it often more hurtful for the one being angry then the person s/he’s angry at.

So even if you feel angry at someone for days recognize that you are mostly just hurting yourself. The other person may not even be aware that you are angry at him or her. So either talking to the person and resolving the conflict or letting go of anger as quickly as possible are pretty good tips to make your life more pleasurable.

5. Release yourself from entitlement.

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

When you are young your mom and dad may give a lot of things. As you grow older you may have a sort of entitlement. You may feel like the world should just give you what you want or that it owes you something.

This belief can cause a lot of anger and frustration in your life. Because the world may not give you what expect it to. On the other hand, this can be liberating too. You realize that it is up to you to shape your own life and for you to work towards what you want. You are not a kid anymore, waiting for your parents or the world to give you something.

You are in the driver’s seat now. And you can go pretty much wherever you want.

6. If you’re taking a different path, prepare for reactions.

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

I think this has quite a bit of relevance to self-improvement.

If you start to change or do something different than you usually do then people may react in different ways. Some may be happy for you. Some may be indifferent. Some may be puzzled or react in negative and discouraging ways.

Much of these reactions are probably not so much about you but about the person who said it and his/her life. How they feel about themselves is coming through in the words they use and judgements they make.

And that’s OK. I think it’s pretty likely that they won’t react as negatively as you may imagine. Or they will probably at least go back to focusing on their own challenges pretty soon.

So what other people may say and think and letting that hold you back is probably just fantasy and barrier you build in your mind.

You may find that when you finally cross that inner threshold you created then people around you may not shun you or go chasing after you with pitchforks. 🙂 They might just go: “OK”.7. Keep your focus steadily on what you want.

“Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

What you focus your mind on greatly determines how things play out. You can focus on your problems and dwell in suffering and a victim mentality. Or you can focus on the positive in situation, what you can learn from that situation or just focus your mind on something entirely else.

It may be “normal” to dwell on problems and swim around in a sea of negativity. But that is a choice. And a thought habit. You may reflexively start to dwell on problems instead of refocusing your mind on something more useful. But you can also start to build a habit of learning to gain more and more control of where you put your focus.

8. Don’t focus so much on making yourself feel good.“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”

This may be a bit of a counter-intuitive tip. But as I wrote yesterday, one of the best ways to feel good about yourself is to make someone else feel good or to help them in some way.

This is a great way to look at things to create an upward spiral of positivity and exchange of value between people. You help someone and both of you feel good. The person you helped feels inclined to give you a hand later on since people tend to want to reciprocate. And so the both of you are feeling good and helping each other.

Those positive feelings are contagious to other people and so you may end up making them feel good too. And the help you received from your friend may inspire you to go and help another friend. And so the upward spiral grows and continues.

9. Do what you want to do.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Awesome quote. And I really don’t have much to add to that one. Well, maybe to write it down and keep it as a daily reminder – on your fridge or bathroom door – of what you can actually do with your life.

Like this:

Spot what is to be memorized verbatim. It is a good plan to use a special marking symbol in text and notebook to indicate parts and passages, rules, data, and all other information that is to be memorized instead of just understood and remembered

If verbatim memory is required, go over the material or try to repeat at odd times.

Think about what you are trying to learn. Find an interest in the material if you wish to memorize it with ease.

Study first the items that you want to remember longest.

Learn complete units at one time, as that is the way it will have to be recalled.

Overlearn to make certain.

Analyze material and strive to intensify the impressions the material makes.

Use concrete imagery whenever possible. Close your eyes and get a picture of the explanation and summary answer. Try to see it on the page. See the key words underlined.

Make your own applications, examples, and illustrations.

Reduce the material to be remembered to your own self-made system or series of numbered steps.

Represent the idea graphically by use of pictorial or diagrammatic forms.

Make a list of key words most useful in explaining the idea or content of the lesson.

Form a variety of associations among the points you wish to remember. The richer the associations, the better the memory.

Try making the idea clear to a friend without referring to your book or notes.

Actually write out examination questions on the material you think you might get at the end of the term. Then write the answers to your own questions. Since you now have the chance, consult the text or your notes to improve your answers.

Follow suggestions for reviewing. This is an important part of remembering.